


More Likely To Want Time Than Courage

by EllynNeverSweet



Category: Pride and Prejudice & Related Fandoms, Pride and Prejudice (1995), Pride and Prejudice (2005), Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: F/M, Gatecrashing, Gossip, HEA, High farce, Meeting the in-laws, Mud, One Shot, Politics, Some angst, Weddings, accidental politics, elizabeth takes on the ton, pre-marital jitters, prinny play-acts cinderella, quite a lot of fluff, unimaginative pseudonyms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25406326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllynNeverSweet/pseuds/EllynNeverSweet
Summary: Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy plan a quiet country wedding. Darcy's aristocratic relatives interfere.
Relationships: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jane Bennet/Charles Bingley
Comments: 63
Kudos: 339





	More Likely To Want Time Than Courage

The wedding of Miss Elizabeth Bennet, a gentleman’s daughter of a village and name almost entirely unknown outside of her own county, to Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, scion of two ancient families and a gentleman of standing in his own right, had never been intended to be an event of great significance to anyone save the parties involved, though it _was_ the cause of a great deal of surprise and delight amongst their various acquaintance. 

Of these, _his_ friends and sister claimed the greatest part of the latter, being much better acquainted with the expressions of the happy couple’s affection than was the society of Hertfordshire, which was the bride’s home county, the place from which they planned to marry, and not least, the place in which they had first met. It had not seemed an auspicious meeting at the time, and, Miss Elizabeth having been well-known and well-liked in that part of the world while Mr Darcy was neither, the inhabitants of Hertfordshire had been used to thinking of them as holding one another in mutual disdain, and were by no means prepared for such an announcement.

It was perhaps to this early disdain that Mr Darcy owed his relative obscurity in that part of the country. Such a man — possessed of all the blessings of wealth, name, connection, and fineness of mind and figure — could never lay claim to entire anonymity, but his own retired nature, and the earliest behaviour of his intended, had, by chance, prevented the fullest expressions of interest into his person and standing that might usually be expected upon the arrival of a bachelor into new society, there being then no thought that he was likely to marry amongst it.

It was decided that the marriage was not to be a rushed or secretive affair, since the bride’s family was in favour of the match and the groom was of age. But there is a fixed period of time, usually about that of a month or two, in which a wedding must be the subject of _some_ gossip, regardless of whether the greater part of the talk takes place before or after the ceremony, and the consequence of this leisurely pace was to make the match the topic of much conversation in those weeks before it was sanctified.

The gossips of Meryton — this being the cheif town of that part of Hertfordshire — were split into three factions on the matter. The first party, those who were kindly disposed towards Miss Eliza, regarded it as a very great coup for a girl who was, after all, only a _local_ beauty, and several thousand pounds short of any proper expectation of so good a match. The second, who thought Miss Elizabeth in the habit of being rather too pleased with herself, thought that the match must betray what they had long suspected — that Mr Darcy had proven himself to have a profound lack of judgement, sense, wit, or possibly all three. The last, which generally comprised the youngest and silliest ladies of Meryton (these groups being not perfectly united) gigglingly predicted that the wedding must constitute the prequel to a tragedy, for, as anyone with a membership to the local subscription library knew, any occasion of such a young and lovely lady being carried away to a picturesque moor by a mysterious gentleman must inevitably be succeeded by her falling prey to some terrible fate, and they anticipated any confirmation of this speculation with ghoulish enthusiasm.

There was, besides all this, much to say of the young couple in relation to Miss Elizabeth’s eldest and youngest sisters, the former recently engaged and the latter recently married, and the sole consensus that the three factions could agree upon was that the young couple had, in all probability, simply been caught up in the fever of matrimony which seemed that season to pervade the very air at Longbourn.

‘For as they say,’ said Lady Lucas, ‘one marriage brings on another — although I must say I think they are rushing it by not even waiting until Miss Bennet was properly married off to be engaged themselves. I only hope they do not regret it.’ 

‘I suppose Miss Elizabeth could not stand to see her sisters given so much preference above herself,’ said Mrs Long, who was perhaps a little annoyed at Mrs Bennet’s good fortune in marrying off three daughters in a single season, when Mrs Long, burdened with two nieces, had yet to dispose of either. ‘Though I cannot blame her for moving quickly to get her hook in him. Mr Darcy is hardly likely to continue on as a guest as Netherfield with a pair of newlyweds, and we all know he thinks society here too mean to exert himself for any but his established acquaintance, so he certainly would not stay only for our society once Mr and Mrs Bingley are gone on their wedding tour.’

There was a general murmur of agreement at this, since Mr Darcy spoke very little and never said anything interesting in the presence of the country’s matrons, and was generally considered a rude and disagreeable man. 

All this considered, it was something of a surprise to the inhabitants of Hertfordshire, that Sunday, to hear the banns read for Miss Elizabeth. Mrs Bennet had told everyone that would listen that she meant for Miss Elizabeth to be married by a special licence, and this, in conjunction with the anticipation already related as to the speed of Mr Darcy’s quitting the country, had lead most of those assembled to assume a joint wedding had been planned. Miss Jane Bennet had had the luck to become engaged upon a Friday afternoon two weeks earlier, and, by consequence, was now upon the _second_ reading of the banns, while her sister was only upon the _first_ . What this could mean, therefore, was the subject of much speculation. Had Mr Darcy disobliged his presumptive mother-in-law, or was it possible his income and connections were not so great had been rumoured? Worse still, was he perhaps indebted? Could he not, at the least, manage a _common_ licence? 

Surely this did not mean, of all things, that the wedding of Miss Bennet and Mr Bingley, now having been prophesied for nearly a year, was to be put off.

‘You know he disapproved of _that_ match,’ said young Mrs Martin, who had a taste for the melodramatic and rather enjoyed scandalising her friends, ‘Do you suppose he might be conspiring at a ruse to undo it?’

‘A _ruse_?’ said one friend, ‘Surely not! He is engaged himself! How could that possibly work?’

‘They are not married _yet_ ,’ said Mrs Martin, enjoying herself tremendously, ‘It is not as if he might not disappear at any time without consequence. No one here has ever encountered him in any other society — and you must remember what Mr Wickham said of his character. Poor Mr Wickham, to be related to _such_ a disagreeable man!’ She sighed in recollection.

Another friend — Mrs Byron, who was a sensible, quiet lady — volunteered that she had heard from her husband that Mr Wickham had been rather slow to pay off his debts to the local tradesmen.

‘Oh, but that is only bachelors for you,’ said Mrs Martin. ‘They always want reminding of such matters.’

‘I heard that Mr Darcy paid Mr Wickham’s debts,’ said Mrs Byron.

‘No doubt to make amends,’ said Mrs Martin, airily.

‘But even if that is so, that must speak to his character,’ protested Mrs Byron mildly. ‘I do not think he can be really as bad as you think he is.’ 

Miss Elizabeth, for her part, had been very happy to anticipate being married in such an ordinary way. She was jointly aware of the near-ruin that had arisen from her sister Lydia’s managing to marry in a way that was both hasty and not soon enough; and of the way in which that affair had resulted in a considerable outlay of funds from her betrothed. She had not allowed herself to rise to the level of guilt for the money spent, for, as Darcy himself had stubbornly insisted, he was determined to regard its outlay as his duty; not to her, but to repair his own neglect of managing Mr Wickham. That his actions had brought _her_ relief was pleasure and consolation both, but they had jointly determined that their marriage was not to begin on a foundation of such account keeping, for the outcome of _that_ sort of thing, in a match of such uneven fortunes, could only end unhappily.

Nonetheless, she could not help but think with some little pleasure, in the privacy of her own mind, of the saving that had been made in forgoing a licence. She had, alas, been unable to keep Darcy from learning of her mother’s wishes. Mrs Bennet had not found the courage to speak her preferences to him, and had been sadly unable to persuade Elizabeth to do so on her behalf, but her loquacity on the subject to all other persons meant that the rumour had spread so far as Dr Marley, the parson of the church at Meryton, and _he_ , who had baptised Elizabeth and held her in some regard as a member of his own flock, had expressed some surprise upon being applied to for the reading of the banns, and proceeded to ask Mr Darcy directly for clarification as to his intentions, and had further been very pointed in asking Darcy to relate the details of his own home parishes, that Dr Marley might correspond with his brothers of the cloth on the matter. This had occasioned a little confusion on Darcy’s part, and he had applied directly to Elizabeth for her preference, whereupon she had found herself obliged to reveal some part of the discussion that had taken place between herself and her mother.

This had greatly mortified her at first, but as Darcy expressed a perfect willingness to be married instead by a common licence just as soon as she should like, and further offered an apology that the delay in gathering the sworn statements a common licence required would probably be about equal to the complications involved in petitioning for a special licence (since he did not, strictly speaking, have the right to ask for such a thing) she had found that she had all the pleasure of giving way to her sister and Mr Bingley, as well as saving him some trouble and expense — though he had disclaimed the notion that a licence of either kind would constitute any real imposition of either.

She found herself falling to teasing on the subject after the service, when they dropped a little behind her family to talk in the space between sermon and Sunday lunch.

‘I suppose it is some consolation that I may require my parents to put on _two_ wedding breakfasts, rather than one,’ she said. ‘Perhaps their being so close together may inspire Mama to some sense of economy, but I doubt it, since she was denied the pleasure of giving one for Lydia. She might, perhaps, manage a meal that costs _half_ as much as a licence. We might have — let me think. Pineapple jam, perhaps — although, oh, I have heard that does not work for some reason. Wait a moment, I shall try again. Toast made of milk cakes, spread with new marmalade. Pork cutlets rolled in spice, and neat’s tongue to follow. What else? Duck eggs poached in turtle soup. Mountains of sweet oranges. Vats of chocolate, served very strong. Kedgeree made with quails eggs and dolphin meat. A cake, of course — three or four layers at least, stuffed with fruit and fed with the very best French cognac. Have I made fifty pounds yet? That is a grave deficiency on my part indeed — I do not know how to order a sufficiently extravagant breakfast to waste such an amount. I expect I shall have to consult a journal to learn how to do so properly. I ought to be able to manage the sums for it in my head, but I have not yet perfect recall of your grocer’s list. What do you advise?’

‘For breakfast?’

‘What else?’

‘It sounds a heavy meal. You will have to roll your guests out the door.’

‘You, I recall, like a steak and coffee. With milk, but without sugar.’

He smiled at that. ‘I do not think I have ever told you so.’

‘It is what you ate at Netherfield last year.’

‘And you remember it still?’

She blushed at this, and justified herself by saying that she had been much appealed to as to what his preferences might be for their family menus, since he had so often been dining at Longbourn lately. 

‘And what if that was _not_ my preference, but only what was offered?’

‘You will not convince me of that without some better proof. Miss Bingley might be many things —’ Caroline Bingley had announced her intended return to Netherfield a few days after she had learned of her brother’s engagement, presumably so that she might take advantage of the remaining few weeks in which she could call herself hostess of an estate. She had arrived only two evenings earlier, called upon Longbourn the very next morning, and in the course of a day, had proved herself so familiar towards Jane and so newly obsequious towards Elizabeth as to offend both of them, ‘but she is nothing if not an attentive hostess. Do you know she offered me my choice of a fish course of eel or pike for dinner on Wednesday? And blancmange to follow! I am sure I never informed her of my fondness for either dish, and she spent so much time explaining her own family’s preferences to Jane that I am not sure Jane managed three words in an hour.’

‘I am sure Miss Bennet will give Miss Bingley’s preferences all due consideration,’ said he with a solemn face.

Elizabeth, who, to her delight, had found firstly that her sister and her intended were more alike in character than she could once have believed, and secondly that that likeness had resulted in mutual respect and the beginnings of firm friendship, was actually moved to laughter by this, and for some minutes was not able to return to the point.

‘But I have lost the thread of the conversation. I was endeavouring to better learn your preferences at table. You must give me a straight answer, if I have been incorrect in my assumptions.’

‘Your summation is entirely correct — my preference is, in general, for a plain, hot dish, lightly dressed. But I must correct you on one point, and that is the cost of a common licence. It is only four or five pounds, not fifty.’

‘I had heard it was something like one hundred and five.’

He shrugged. ‘There is a bond.’

‘Oh,’ she said, affecting cool sophistication, ‘ _only_ a bond. Why, that is perfectly rational. Who could mind the temporary loss of one hundred pounds?’

‘And to such an upstanding figure as a bishop, no less.’

‘Sir! I had believed you to have the greatest respect for the church!’

‘Indeed I do. The clergy, on the other hand,’ he tilted his head. ‘Well, perhaps I have spent too much time in company with their prospective candidates to have an unguarded admiration for _all_ their members.’

Looking ahead, he loosened his hand from hers. ‘Your mother wants you, I think.’

Mrs Bennet was indeed turning back to wink at them, and Elizabeth, reluctantly, went to join her mother, who insisted upon leaning on Elizabeth’s arm the rest of the way back to Longbourn.

‘There,’ said Mrs Bennet in satisfaction, when they had returned home and she had insisted further on Elizabeth’s withdrawing upstairs with her, to assist her in some little matter in her dressing room. ‘You ought not do that again, Elizabeth. Thank heaven I was there!’

Elizabeth, who could not at that moment think just what she had done to receive such a reprimand, decided it was better to ask what was meant by such a statement in private, that it might not come up again in the course of the afternoon.

‘Walking back from church with Mr Darcy, of course! It is terribly bad luck to do such a thing. A couple who walks out of a church together before they are wed will never be married!’

Elizabeth laughed at this, and teased her mother for superstition.

Mrs Bennet denied it was any such thing, and fell to relating third- and fourth-hand stories of just such ill events.

‘But madam,’ said Elizabeth, ‘you will do no good by telling me now. It has already happened. Mr Darcy is in the drawing room below.’

Mrs Bennet exclaimed that it had not, for Mr Darcy had walked back with their family, this apparently being a distinction of much import. But handholding and whispering together — acts which Mrs Bennet generally chose to ignore — were by no means to be permitted on the roads bounding the church.

The novelty of engagement soon began to give way, easily and pleasantly, to the greater comforts of routine and real affection. They fell into agreeable habits — walking out in the morning when it was fine, escaping to some quiet corner of Longbourn when it was not, and enduring, with greater and lesser degrees of comfort, the parade of calls, card parties, dinners, and exhortations towards dancing that the season of courtship expected of them. 

She had, with boldness bordering on impertinence, seized the opportunity to call him by his christian name almost as soon as they had understood themselves to be engaged, and had found him to be so delighted by the imposition that she had not found it at all easy to refrain from addressing him so in company. 

Fitzwilliam was not a usual sort of name and, he had explained a little distractedly, not one much used; for, as she had already known, he had been named for his mother’s family, and as they constituted much the greater part of his still-living relations, it would be a point of confusion for him to be referred to as such. To them, to his friends, to his dependents and tenants and servants, he was always and only Mr Darcy — to almost her alone, he was Fitzwilliam. She gloried in the intimacy of it.

They had determined, even before they had settled on a date, that they were to go to London rather than directly to Pemberley after their wedding — London being an easy destination to manage in an afternoon, without the evenings at an inn that any but the most desperate journey required between Hertfordshire and Derbyshire. The usual course of events on such an occasion was for a bride to wait on all of her and her new husband’s acquaintance upon being settled in his house, and, resolve as she might not to think on it, she could not help falling into occasional fits of fretfulness as to how she would be received — or, in some of her more absurd moments of anxiety, _if_ she would be received.

This question preyed upon Elizabeth’s mind despite her general gaiety, for she could not entirely forget the threats issued by Lady Catherine, who had been fixed in her determination to quash even the rumour of her nephew’s engagement to such a person as an Elizabeth Bennet, and who had displayed very great ire upon failing to do so. 

Darcy, she knew, had written to his aunt to advise her of the match, and had received a letter in return. The contents of this missive had clearly displeased him, and he had flatly refused to show it to her, saying only that he did not mean to speak again to his aunt for some time, and this action, though probably intended to spare her feelings, had served rather to make her anxious as to what abuse might have been heaped upon her in writing, and how far such sentiments might have spread. 

She could not bring herself to repent the forthright manner in which she had spoken to Lady Catherine upon being confronted so impertinently, but it was with a pang of unease that she reflected on the absurdity of having in the one moment told his aunt that she had no intention of concerning herself with the opinions of those who could have no reasonable interest in herself and her happiness, only to in the next moment throw herself into the same family circle whose opinions she had previously disclaimed. She could, she felt, stand to be unwelcome, but it did not follow that she would wish it so.

She seized upon the planning of their Christmas holidays to broach the topic. The invitation to the Gardiners, given in affectionate impulse, had in turn given rise to invitations to the remaining Bennets — whose guests they had inadvertently stolen away — then to Jane and Mr Bingley, who were quite happy to give up the prospect of hosting Mr and Mrs Phillips, and then even to that worthy uncle and aunt. This last was, at least, relieved in Elizabeth’s mind by the prospect that they would not stay very long, for Aunt Phillips was too used to playing at being a hostess herself to want to be very long away from Meryton, and would stay only long enough to fill herself up with anecdotes about Elizabeth’s new household. 

‘Do you usually have such a large party about you at Christmas time — or larger, perhaps?’ she asked, abruptly recalling his impression of society in the country as unvaried, and his description of the party of seven or eight people whom she had met at Pemberley as ‘small.’ 

He smiled. ‘Larger, usually — but not at Pemberley. When I was a child my mother and uncle took turns, but after I was sent to school we got into the habit of being always at Wentworth-Woodhouse at that time of year. My uncle always has a thousand schemes he wishes to consult his friends on, and my father did not care for formal visits without a hostess. Milton — that is my cousin Charles, Lord Milton — Colonel Fitzwilliam’s older brother, was in his last year at school and, I think, seventeen when I started at Eton, so he was judged old enough to have guardianship of us between London and Yorkshire. Heaven knows why.’

‘How many were you?’

‘At least half a dozen, generally. Milton, Jack, and myself, and whichever hangers-on and sons of guests we were obliged to bring with us.’

‘It sounds a lively party. Did you behave yourselves?’

‘Not in the least. Though I will not say more than that I learned how to shuffle a deck and count coins stuffed four to a seat in a moving carriage on bad roads. Generally speaking at least one young honourable would tumble out the other end and greet his father with a request to have his debts paid off.’

‘And you visit Rosings at Easter, with your cousin,’ she mused, ‘But does your uncle never condescend to visit at that time? And does he never visit you? I cannot think Pemberley deficient in anything, and yet you cannot be there above half the year, and never for holidays.’

He smiled again at this. ‘Pemberley is perhaps a little quieter than it ought to be, that is true. I find it easier to entertain large parties in town, where my guests may be relied upon to leave at the end of the evening. My uncle and cousins have a standing invitation to Pemberley, of course, and will stop in for a few days whenever they are travelling in that part of the country.’

She circled back to the topic she wished to discuss, searching for a way to bring it up naturally. ‘But does your uncle never visit Rosings?’

‘Not at Easter. He and Aunt Catherine call upon each other in town, but about half an hour of each other’s company is about as much as they can manage without falling into bickering, so his visits are not otherwise regular — and Rosings is not a place that offers much entertainment for gentlemen.’

‘Then they are not close? Do they differ much in personality?’

Darcy considered this with a tilt of the head. ‘They are, in some ways, very alike…it is easiest, I suppose, to simply say that my grandfather died when they were both children, and so my uncle has been accustomed to be addressed in truth as _my lord_ since he was eight years old. He is a clever man, capable of great subtlety, and he holds his own opinion in justly high esteem. Aunt Catherine, meanwhile, is his next eldest sister, and does not like to forget it. She would like to hold more influence than he sees fit to grant her.’

‘I see! I think I may take his likeness well enough from that. Clever young men with no brake on their behaviour but their own judgement are, after all, a species I may claim some familiarity with.’

He laughed. ‘I am not so entirely like my uncle as you seem to imagine — certainly I have not his resources. But you will be the better judge, when you meet him.’

She could have no better opportunity to ask what she truly wished to know. ‘When is that likely to be? Will he feel he has as great an interest in our engagement as Lady Catherine did?’

Darcy looked a little embarrassed at this, and protested that it could not be so great an interest, for his uncle had no daughters to press on him — but that it would not be precisely what had been expected of him. She had suspected as much, but so clear was his discomfort on the subject that she resolved with a flutter of anxiety to ask no more, for the present. She wondered, perhaps, if the invitations to Pemberley for Christmas had been intended to avoid the awkwardness of learning whether or not she would be welcome at his uncle’s estate.

‘I do not wish to cause a rift,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Though I will not and cannot regret it if we have already done so. But I mean to mend fences, if I can, so in time you will have to advise me how best to do so.’

A few days later, Darcy volunteered the subject of his uncle once again, and in a manner that made her suspect he had been thinking a great deal on the subject. This was a surprise, but rather greater was the news related of Darcy’s having intended to stand for a seat in parliament the previous year. 

‘It was always my uncle’s intention, at least, and I did not object,’ he said. ‘But the first time he raised the subject was only a year or two after my father’s death, and I thought myself too busy at the time to take on another responsibility; and then there was no good opportunity for it until the election last year. I had planned to be occupied with it all last summer — that is why I sent Georgiana to Ramsgate, so she would not have to dodge endless visitors at home. Of course, afterwards I could not risk those events being too closely scrutinised.’

‘Your uncle will not relish your having Mr Wickham as a brother-in-law, then,’ said Elizabeth, dismayed.

‘Better to have him close than causing trouble from a distance,’ he said pragmatically, though his distaste could not be entirely hidden. ‘But my uncle does not know of the details of Mr Wickham’s involvement, unless Jack has told him, which I do not think likely. But it could not be entirely hidden from him that I had changed my mind because I did not wish to expose Georgiana to society, and I let the general opinion be formed that I had abandoned the scheme for want of a willing hostess. It seems to me that that might form the basis of a plan to win my uncle over. Do you think you could develop a taste for politics?’

Her surprise grew rapidly into astonishment. ‘I confess I have never considered it. I would not call myself entirely ignorant, precisely, but, well. My Uncle Gardiner likes to keep abreast of such things — I think you heard some of the usual sorts of discussions when you visited in Gracechurch street. I do not dislike hearing such conversations, but what makes it to the morning papers and a London merchant’s table is the limit of my knowledge. Is politicking an interesting pastime?’

‘It can be.’

She laughed. ‘ _That_ does not sound very promising.’

‘At its best, you may witness some of the cleverest minds in the country engaged in important and intricate work. At worst, you will see a gentleman bawling at his neighbour until he is red in the face over something of no relevance to anyone to run down the length of a speech, only to then see the two of them sit down to dinner afterwards in perfect amiability.’

‘So the manners are that of a card party played for pennies a piece, and the topics are those of a gentlemen’s club? 

‘How would _you_ know what topics are discussed at a gentlemen’s club?’

‘Oh, easily. One picks up a newspaper, and reads that Mr Such-and-Such discussed the case of something-or-other with Mr So-and-So at the club last Wednesday, and they humbly present their joint findings upon the matter. Ladies do the same, only we do not so often write to the papers to present our pudding receipts. But I fancy vanity is at fault in both cases — gentlemen delight in showing off their cleverness to all the world, where ladies show off by keeping their cleverness a secret. In both cases, one never wishes to be seen to work at accomplishment.’

Darcy laughed at this.

‘There is a fault in your reasoning, in that case. If both sexes wish to make their achievement seem the result of natural genius rather than purposeful study, then one must assume that a gentleman who _says_ he developed his humble thesis over port at his club will, in truth, have expended a great deal of ink and coffee in the privacy of his study to refine the initial idea.’

‘You betray your peers, sir. I had thought that gentlemen comported themselves amongst their own sex with even greater refinement than they do in company. Do you next mean to tell me the truth of what men discuss amongst themselves without a lady present?’

‘Not at all. It is not worth your listening to. In any case,’ he said, returning to the topic, ‘if you think you can like politics enough to permit it at your table in company,’ and his smile at the words quite matched her own, ‘then I think it will be no great difficulty to convince my uncle — or if not him, my cousin — that we may jointly be of greater use to them than I am myself.’ 

‘And if I do not like it?’

‘Then we may abandon the attempt. I am not reliant on my uncle, so it does not matter overmuch. He may disapprove of my actions as much as he wishes, but we will do as we please. He will come around in time.’

She pressed him on this, asking a little anxiously if his own ambition would not be injured.

‘Not at all. I do not want for occupation or influence.’ 

‘In that case,’ said Elizabeth, ‘I suppose there can be no harm in testing the waters.’

She was amused to learn that testing the waters, in this case, did not mean burrowing through dusty tomes to learn the history of the last twenty years of amended bills and party conferences. Rather, it meant clothes.

Miss Darcy, upon receiving permission to write to her, had begun at once. Her missives to Elizabeth, of whom she was still a little shy, had not yet reached the length of those sent to her brother, but her readiness to please was apparent in every line. The next of these that Elizabeth received contained a scrupulously copied out list of the warehouses, factories, modistes, and even styles which had been approved of for the costume of the Earl’s household, and from which it was suggested with awkward delicacy— Georgiana would never say _require_ , even when it was clear she had received her own instructions in just such terms — that Elizabeth should order her wedding clothes.

‘It seems I am to wear a uniform,’ said Elizabeth, much amused. ‘But I am pleased to see that I may at least _chuse for ribbons and morning dress from among the divers colours listed herewith that which best suits the lady’s age and complexion,_ so it is not _quite_ livery. I begin to see whence you derive your rigid habits, Fitzwilliam.’

Darcy, who had that morning taken advantage of the freedoms permitted to a betrothed gentleman to make an early visit to Longbourn, glanced up, somewhat apprehensively, from his book. He had obtained the freedom of the library for them from Mr Bennet by proving himself to have quite as good an understanding of the canon as Mr Bennet did himself, and, more to the point, by having always a book in hand that he was able to discuss should they be interrupted. He had, as was his habit, selected a book he was already familiar with, and settled down to leaf through it in a relaxed fashion, on occasion reading some phrase or other to Elizabeth that he thought likely to amuse or interest her. That he felt it necessarily to have her tucked into the crook of his arm while they sat together had proved an altogether delightful novelty, and a restriction she made no complaint upon.

Elizabeth had set herself the dual tasks of attending to some correspondence and distracting him from his book, and was in a state of some slight dudgeon to find that, easy as this task was, she was evidently the more easily distracted of the two. 

‘I take it Georgiana has sent the list?’

‘I feel such a thing ought to have a grander name. The _Fitzwilliam Guide to Grace and Style, Issued Quarterly For the Refinement and Edification of Ladies of Quality_ , or something of that nature. _The list_ does not do it justice.’

He smiled at this. ‘You may take comfort in knowing you have more freedom to choose your wardrobe than a viscountess, if you like. It is usual for family gatherings and in town, but Georgiana generally ignores it at home. Lady Milton, on the other hand, was once ordered back upstairs to change and delayed a dinner party by three quarters of an hour.’

Elizabeth grimaced. ‘Can there be a purpose to such a decree?’

‘Politics,’ he said, succinctly.

‘That is not an answer.’

‘Might you not guess at a fuller explanation? I should like to know your assessment of the reasoning behind such a performance.’

She pondered. Mrs Bennet had purchased a copy of DeBretts, which she had stowed in a place of honour in the library, but not before appealing to Elizabeth to mark any of Darcy’s friends and relations in it. Elizabeth, mortified, had begged her father’s intercession, lest Darcy should come to know of this absurdity. Mr Bennet had taken it down, leafed through the pages, snorted, and then put it rather less obviously on one of the lower shelves, though it did not seem to stay there. Since then she had made every excuse to keep Darcy from the library until she could first ascertain it had been left in some obscure place — but she had found she could not help herself. She had read through it. She had then gone to find every book of history and topography they possessed, feeling every bit as guilty as she had when she had been Kitty’s age and attempting to smuggle a copy of _The Monk_ out from the library, and, with no very great degree of calmness, had looked up the several estates and houses that had been listed as associated with her prospective in-laws. 

She read through the list again, and took note of the warehouse and factories referenced. 

‘Lace, to be of irish make, in the ursuline fashion, or else of similar convent school work. Linen likewise. Your family is Irish.’

‘We are not.’

She corrected herself. ‘Your uncle’s title is Irish.’

‘One of them, yes. And he has property in Ireland, and has often played some part in the government there. The question of emancipation is one of his pet causes.’

She squirmed a little at _one of them_ , and sought to cover her discomfort with a joke. ‘If _your_ uncle the earl was _my_ uncle the merchant, I would say that he wished to advertise his wares, and, being of an economical turn of mind, set the ladies of his family the task of doing so. Does he, perhaps, own some or other of these factories? I shall feel myself entitled to a reduction in rates if he does.’

He smiled, and squeezed her approvingly. ‘You are not far off, in truth, though that is not the answer he would want. He does have some shares in some of the wares listed, although in the spirit of perfect honesty I must confess that one of the York wool mills listed there was settled on my mother, and as such now belongs to me and to Georgiana — mostly to Georgiana, though that is for the moment a theoretical distinction. But the enrichment of the family is not, at least, the principal intention of this particular set of instructions. My uncle believes the encouragement of trained industry to be vital to the reduction of poverty and unrest in the remoter parts of the kingdom, and the prevention of jacobinism. To that end he does much to encourage the formation of skilled societies, and learning and practicing of various trades. Also to that end, he attempts to encourage the proper _payment_ of such workers by factory owners, which is easier when the goods of such responsible employers are in a great deal of demand, among, say, fashionable ladies of the _ton.’_

He squeezed her again at this, and she blushed.

‘So I am to be a monument to commercial charity, then,’ she said. 

‘Something like. That is not the whole of it — there are certain trends that spring up when some hostess or other becomes for a season or two the toast of the town, and then the lucky gentleman whose table she manages achieves a great deal of attention at having such a lady at his side, and incidentally some additional attention paid to whichever of his pet bills he has kept in reserve. But that is a more abstract business, and I confess that though I have seen it often enough, I do not entirely understand the means by which such moods take hold.’ 

He smiled suddenly. ‘Do you remember when we discussed the qualities of an accomplished lady?’

‘I do. I hope you do not mean to tell me that you mean to introduce me to such a one as you described on that occasion. I think I should faint away if confronted with such a formidable creature.’

‘I thought you had no want of courage?’

‘I may yet be overcome.’

‘Fear not, then, for I cannot introduce you to the lady I have in mind. Miss Bingley mentioned something — a certain air and manner that some ladies possess. You are perhaps too young to remember when the late Duchess of Devon was so often in the papers, but she was an intimate friend of my uncle and his circle, and a close enough neighbour to us at Pemberley that I saw her very often as a child. She was not, perhaps, the most beautiful woman in England, but she had such a way of walking and speaking that she charmed everyone she met. She could not enter a room without every eye turning to her, and one could not meet her without liking her and wishing to be like her and in her company.’

‘She sounds as if she were an enchantress. Were you in love with her, Fitzwilliam?’

‘Oh, probably. But I was only a boy.’ He smiled. ‘ _You_ have a little of the same sort of air about you.’

She laughed at this. ‘Do I? You flatter me. But — ’ she _could not_ seem to accept his compliments with complaisance. It was absurd to be made to blush so easily, and yet she could not help it. ‘But I am not sure I can agree to this list, you know. It seems to me that a bride ought to dress to please herself first and her husband a _very near_ second, so it is all wrong to be considering first what some factory owner in —’ she consulted the letter ‘— Ulster wishes me to wear. How should _you_ like me to dress?’

He shrugged. ‘Just as you like. I think I should admire you in anything.’

‘Oh! You are difficult. What of this gown — do you like it? Does it flatter me?’

He considered her muslin, the tucks and pleats of which had been brought into sharp relief by its being draped over a deeply coloured woollen petticoat in deference to the coldness of the day. ‘The weights of your costume do not entirely match, but it does not look at all ill. The colour suits you very well. I am confident your own taste and habits will be a proper guide for you.’

‘My habits? Miss Bingley would disagree. She would remind you my habit is to run about with muddy skirts.’

‘Perhaps I like your muddy skirts.’

She shoved him, and went to stand up. ‘Really, sir.’

He caught her about the waist, pulling her down into his lap, and pressed his face into her hair. ‘My admiration is entirely in earnest, I assure you. They offer the distinct prospect of your undressing in the near future.’

The excitement and embarrassment this occasioned her surely demanded some response, but, as there was no possible phrase she could turn to fit her needs, she turned her head instead, and kissed him. 

For some time all conversation was necessarily at an end, but at length he pinned her against him so she was obliged to enjoy only what warmth could be felt through his worsted coat. He pressed half-reluctant kisses to her temple. ‘Dearest,’ he murmured ‘my dear, I...’

She laid her head on his shoulder, unable to decide whether this posture made her irritable or content in greater measure. His grip loosened, and he reached, one-handed, for the book he had laid aside, the other hand tracing absent little circles against her hip. She shifted restlessly.

He laid the book — the last volume of _Tom Jones_ — on her lap, but did not open it. 

‘What time is it?’ 

She consulted her watch, realising too late she might as easily have consulted his, instead. 

‘A quarter to twelve.’

He considered this thoughtfully. ‘Your mother will be expecting callers soon.’ 

‘No doubt everyone else in Hertfordshire has managed to attend to their correspondence by now.’

‘No doubt they had nothing better to do.’

‘The country _can_ prove fearfully dull at this time of year,’ she kissed him. ‘But _you_ at least have the opportunity to wander outdoors as much as you like. I am lectured about losing my complexion if I stir from my work to so much as take a turn about the park without you present. Do you know I have made three shifts already this week? For Jane, fortunately — since I confess I do not recall the provenance of the lawn. Still, we have _some_ entertainment to look forward to — the assembly will begin again next week. That will provide a little relief from this tedium.’ She kissed him again.

‘Will it?’

‘Indeed it will. We will dance together.’

Elizabeth demanded four sets of him at the assembly and at any future party hosted by the Lucases, pointing out that as they had danced together but once prior to their engagement, and might only do so _twice_ in an evening after their marriage, she wished to take full advantage of the liberties allowed them to put him through his paces in the intervening space. 

‘For otherwise how will I know which dances we are best suited to? I should like to plan our evenings in advance.’

He had raised an involuntary eyebrow at this, and coloured a little, which made her grow hot all over and half fear she had exposed herself. But he had agreed, and had indeed proved himself to be elegant and capable in handing her through the steps, if perhaps a little stiff. 

‘You are afraid of making a mistake,’ she teased him. ‘Do you count the beat in your head?’

‘I do not like to perform,’ he said. ‘Will it please you or disappoint you to learn I am not usually placed so high when I am in town?’

‘I see! You do not like to lead the set, then?’

‘Not at all.’

‘I am amazed to find myself in such a situation, in truth. It is not at all what I am used to. But for myself I have always found some charming little mistake here or there liable to make an audience fonder of one, you know. It does not do to be too perfect.’

‘A mistake is, by definition, accidental. To attempt to be deliberate about it would be absurd, and I cannot be unembarrassed by my own errors, nor wish to be unaware of them.’

‘Selfish as it is, I am pleased for my own sake to know that you have some imperfections. But,’ she learned closer, ‘you would draw less attention to such things if you did not give undue weight to your own displeasure at them. I shall endeavour to teach you some blitheness of demeanour.’

He smiled at this, and she laughed. ‘You get on charmingly already. You have forgotten to frown.’

‘I have been most pleasingly distracted. And we are, besides, not presently dancing.’

‘Then I must endeavour to distract you when we begin again.’

One morning, a few days before the banns were to be read for the third and final time for Jane, Bingley arrived at Longbourn in company with Darcy, as was their usual habit. Less usual were their manners — for the former looked slightly shamefaced, the latter more solemn than he had been for some time. Darcy suggested a walk to the Mount, and, almost as soon as they had crossed the threshold of the house, Bingley drew Jane aside, beginning a whispered conversation. The play of emotion across Jane’s usually calm face soon drew Elizabeth’s attention — alarm, surprise, something like disappointment. At first attending only to this, Elizabeth saw that Darcy was following the progress of this conversation with almost equal attention, though he attempted to disguise it.

‘Oh, _Charles_ ,’ said Jane.

‘It will be perfectly alright,’ he said. ‘I expect it will only take a day or two to arrange things.’

‘But the cost of it! Really, wouldn’t it be better to wait?’

Elizabeth turned to Darcy, and asked him what could be meant by this.

Darcy, studying a knot of trees in the middle distance with apparent fascination, frowned. ‘A small accident. Bingley has travelled a great deal this past year, between one thing and another, and he was not entirely certain which parish he ought to apply to for having the banns read on _his_ behalf. He discussed the matter with Dr Marley and wrote to the most likely candidates, but there was some delay in the post, and his parish in York has so far read the banns only once, with the second reading to be this Sunday.’

‘Then — what? He cannot be married?’

Darcy grimaced. ‘Not within the month as things stand. It can be resolved, I am sure — there is no _actual_ impediment. It is only that, having _begun_ the reading in more than one parish, it must be certified as having been completed in order for Dr Marley to rightly permit the thing to proceed. Bingley means to purchase a licence, rather than put things off any further. I have some business to attend to myself, so I offered to go with him and help arrange matters.’

She considered this, and recalled that he had managed a licence for Lydia and Mr Wickham under far greater irregularity. 

‘I suppose that is alright, then. Do you mean to be gone long?’

‘I cannot rightly say. It will take a few days at least — perhaps as much as a week.’

‘I shall miss you.’

He smiled at this. ‘Perhaps you might come to town for a few days? I know you are much occupied, but perhaps there are some things you —‘

‘I have purchases to make,’ said Elizabeth, at once. ‘I would much prefer to buy my hats and gloves in person, rather than by post.’

‘Yes. Besides — I have not yet had the opportunity to show you where we will live.’

In the end, Mrs Bennet accompanied _both_ her elder daughters to town. She and Mr Bennet had argued the matter into agreement between them, Mrs Bennet saying that if Elizabeth was to have her wedding clothes made up in person in London than Jane certainly ought to as well, and Mr Bennet declaring that if his daughters were to be in London with their respective intendeds, an extra chaperone would be entirely desirable — not that Mrs Bennet seemed much interested in chaperonage.

She was quite content to let her daughters slip away to one room or another of the Gardiners’ townhouse, apparently feeling that such little indiscretions as might take place could tend only to the promotion of the as-yet unsanctified matches. The Gardiner children, through their wish to be always in company with their cousins, were as such rather more attentive in this post than was their aunt. They were soon inclined to like Bingley, who was a most capable participant in their games, and they surprised everyone save their parents with their existing regard for Darcy, who treated their proclamations on their current interests with as much dignity and attention as if he were listening to a presentation to the Royal Society.

Darcy, feeling himself unable to refrain from inviting Mrs Bennet to his own house — though Elizabeth had trembled at the notion of seeing her mother give vent to her pleasure on Elizabeth’s _own_ first occasion of seeing her new home — settled the matter by inviting all the Bennets and Gardiners. Mr and Mrs Gardiner captured Mrs Bennet between them almost as soon as they arrived, offering their ears up as willing sacrifices to her delights, and, their attention being much claimed by watching the well-behaved little Gardiners, Elizabeth took the opportunity to explore further afield, claiming Darcy as her own guide on the matter.

The house, an elegant structure fronting on Grosvenor Square, was all that Elizabeth could possibly have wished or imagined. It had been decorated in a style very much like what she had seen at Pemberley, airy and well balanced, the halls heavy with art, the smooth floors bearing urns filled with living plants and, she was amused to see, spotless dog beds, which had been tucked indulgently into the corners of almost every room. 

She asked where their occupants were. Pemberley, Darcy told her — Georgiana delighted in terriers, and by some miscommunication between her various relatives had been presented with three separate puppies on her previous birthday.

They explored breakfast room, drawing room, dining room, music room, library, and, at last, an elegant orangerie stuffed with a dazzling variety of plants, all of which Darcy declared an interest in and could give a history of, from the ancient, venerable roses to the line of espaliered orange trees, just beginning to bud. At length, she was able to persuade him upstairs.

‘I have seen where you eat all your meals, and where you write your letters and entertain your guests,’ she said. ‘But surely you cannot spend _all_ your time on that. When do you sleep?’

He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘In the evening, as most people do — although later in town than in the country.’

‘Really. And do you sleep in your library?’

He laughed. ‘Not usually — though I confess it happens on occasion.’

She rallied. ‘Then where? — and where am _I_ to sleep? I did not think your library sofa so _very_ comfortable as all that.’

He coloured, and drew her close. ‘On this floor. The last doorway on the left — that is my room. I —’ he cleared his throat. ‘I mean to have a dressing room made over for you before we return here. Should you like to give me your opinion on it?’

She could still hear, faintly, the sound of her family below. ‘I should. Will you show me?’

The matter of the licence was resolved quickly — almost too quickly for Elizabeth’s tastes, in fact. They had been several times to the house in Grosvenor Square, and she had soon become pleasantly familiar with it, in spite of its grandeur — the blind corners, the curtains, the tell-tale sounds of someone approaching, and from what direction. It was altogether distracting to consider herself the mistress and inhabitant of that house, free from the ever-present awareness of the need to conduct herself as a decorous guest.

London was quiet at that time of year — or, at least, it was quiet in _that_ part of town. Almost all of Darcy’s acquaintance were absent at one shooting party or another, and would not be consistently in town until the new year. The fashionable ladies whose lists she was to join were in the country, or Bath, or Tunbridge Wells, and would not congregate in London until after Easter. His own family was, accordingly, not to be seen nor heard of. Those persons of quality who _were_ in town were inevitably, as they were themselves, on business which kept them much occupied, and there was by consequence little time for introductions. Elizabeth consoled herself that she was quite as busy as she could wish, and threw herself with redoubled effort into the business of arranging her trousseau.

Bingley had arrived one morning at the house in Gracechurch street in a mood of high good humour, striding into the parlour where Elizabeth had been occupied pinning Jane’s hem, and had, without so much as a by-your-leave, swung Jane off the table she had been balanced on. 

Jane protested this, though she flushed very prettily as she did, saying that she was all over pins and someone would be bound to be pricked if he kept up such behaviour.

He had only grinned at this, and presented Jane with the licence he had collected that morning with a flourish of delight.

‘There! Signed and sealed, and only waiting to be made use of.’

Elizabeth, tidying her pins away, came over to observe it, having never seen such a document. ‘It looks very official.’

‘It does, does it not? The quality of the paper is very good. I expect that is where the cost of it goes.’ Bingley, grinning from ear to ear, observed it as proudly as if it had been the deeds to a grand estate.

Darcy, who had followed him in, almost unnoticed in the flurry, touched her hand, and wished her a good morning when she turned, smiling, to him.

Jane finished looking at the licence, and went to hand it back to Bingley. He pressed it back into her hands. ‘I think you had better keep it. I spent half an hour this morning looking for my purse, and it would never do to lose such a thing. Besides, ladies keep the marriage lines, don’t they?’

‘I suppose they do,’ said Jane. ‘But I do not believe you would really lose it. Did you find your purse?’

‘He did,’ said Darcy. ‘It was in his writing desk, which explains why it took him so long to remember.’

‘If we were to use it _today_ I am sure I would not use it,’ said Bingley, ‘but we must go back to Hertfordshire, since it can only be used there, and it is too late to manage that this morning. No, I am convinced you ought to have the management of it, Jane.’

Jane agreed to this, tucking the licence inside her pocket-book. She ran a hand down her dress to smooth it, and stopped abruptly, snatching her hand away to suck at her palm with a muffled exclamation. ‘Oh, I had forgotten the pins. Wait a moment, I must go and change. Lizzy?’

They returned to the sound of Mrs Bennet enquiring of Mr Bingley what dishes he might want for the wedding breakfast. On their entry into the room, Mrs Bennet asked them if they thought they would be ready to return back to Longbourn that day.

Elizabeth thought she probably would not be. Mrs Bennet frowned her disapproval and asked when they _would_ be ready, for surely, now the licence had been obtained, they ought return to Hertfordshire as soon as possible, so that the wedding might take place.

Jane explained that they still meant to wait five or six days, to match the date they had originally planned upon.

‘A week!’ declared Mrs Bennet. ‘I am sure I never heard any such thing! Why, people marry at all hours of the day and night by a licence, as soon as it has been procured!’

‘That is with a special licence, Mama,’ said Jane. ‘This is a common licence. Only peers can petition for special licences.’

This was not perfectly accurate, but as Mrs Bennet affected not to understand the finer details of the difference between lords spiritual and temporal, ministers of parliament, peers, and those of their children who merely affected titles that their eventual ennoblement might not present so great a shock, there was not much point in laying out all the gradations of such privilege to her.

‘Oh! But then you should have had a special licence. Fancy paying for a licence and then waiting a week. Lizzy —’

Elizabeth, sitting by Darcy in the furthest possible corner of the room, affected not to hear her mother, and pretended to show him some of the work on the pinned-up dress she still carried.

He bent his head under pretence of examining it.

‘It is not too late,’ he murmured, very soft. ‘If we are to be in town a few days more. I suspect I might even be able to track down some cousin or other to act as an accomplice to accost the Archbishop.’

She tilted her head so that only he could see her smile.

‘Two weeks is not such a very long time. I should hate to be married in a tacked-together gown.’

‘You might be married at nine in the evening in your own drawing room. Surely there you might wear whatever you please.’

She blushed. 

‘That would hardly be convenient, to be married in the evening at Longbourn. Where would we go afterwards?’

He quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘I had meant the drawing room _here_. But if you insist upon a morning ceremony —’

‘I do. And a church, and as many witnesses as we can decently manage; certainly more than two. A drawing room in the evening would be perfectly scandalous. Imagine what people would think of us.’

In the end the wedding of Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley proceeded exactly as it ought to have done, with no further delay than if the banns had been read exactly when expected, and only a little more expense. It was attended, as was the usual fashion, by such of the family and intimate friends of the bride and groom as were already in the county, or else not far distant, followed by a very pretty breakfast at the bride’s parental home, at which the sisters of both parties played and sang, and, eventually, between this and the urging of Sir William Lucas, a little dancing was got up in the afternoon. 

The Gardiners intended to stay for the eight days anticipated between Jane’s wedding and that of her younger sister. 

The Hursts, who had likewise travelled from London, did not. 

They had indicated to their brother that they meant to return to Netherfield for the latter wedding, to which they had been invited. As Mr and Mrs Bingley meant to quit Netherfield the day after on their wedding tour, was not greatly to be wished. This did, however, give Miss Bingley one last opportunity to do the honours of the house for her sister, and her relations were duly pleased to be able to accommodate her ambition with so little inconvenience. 

Jane, beautiful beyond fashion and happy past serenity, kissed her sisters a thousand times before stepping up into Bingley’s new curricle, which he had chosen to drive himself, with a pair of high-spirited and perfectly matched chestnuts to pull it. These set off with a will, and the happy couple were soon out range of the rice and shoes thrown (by the ladies) and pelted (by the little Lucases and Gardiners) and, very soon after that, out of sight.

Mrs Bennet heaved a sigh of mingled pleasure and relief, and exclaimed on what a pleasure it was to think of Jane settled so near.

Elizabeth, feeling suddenly forlorn, wandered away, preferring to walk in the park instead of immediately returning to the house and room she no longer shared with her sister.

Darcy was, of course, still present when she felt herself sufficiently restored to be indoors again, talking with Mr Gardiner over a recently published pamphlet they had both read. He would stay with them that evening, out of deference to the lack of other guests at Netherfield, and depart, briefly, for London in a day or two, both to manage some business that could not be completed by post, and to give the appearance of propriety. 

He had promised to return no later than two days before the date they had set so that he might see her again before they married, for Mrs Bennet, in a fit of superstition, had barred Jane from coming downstairs to see Mr Bingley the previous day.

Her aunt Gardiner found her.

‘Your turn next, Lizzy. Are you looking forward to it?’ 

She smiled at this. ‘Yes indeed. I only hope we may make as creditable a showing.’

  
  


The morning of Elizabeth’s wedding came on through sheets of rain. Elizabeth, dismayed, studied the road through the smeared glass of her window, wondering if such weather could possibly last, and thought fretfully of the three miles of wet road between Longbourn and Netherfield, the mile between Longbourn and the church at Meryton, the distance — was a four-and-a-half miles, or was it longer? — between Meryton and Netherfield. She had never measured the road, having always preferred to cut across the fields between.

Mrs Bennet, in a flurry of activity, ordered fires lit in every room of the house, as if she might dry the entire country by force of will. 

Elizabeth was directed to a tiled antechamber that connected kitchen and stillroom — this being long since found to be the most convenient place in Longbourn to lay out a full sized soaking bath — and was scrubbed and bathed by a blessedly silent Sarah, while Mrs Bennet raged above. Rain drummed against the roof and walls, thundering about her so that it seemed the hot dry air of the house had become an unnatural anomaly. At length she plunged her head beneath the water so that she could hear nothing but the quick steady thunder of her own heartbeat, and realised too late that she had certainly ruined the set of her curls.

A hand stroked her knee, and she broke the surface with a splutter.

‘Jane!’

Mrs Bingley, looking as calm as ever, straightened up before she could be drenched by the resulting slop of water over the edge of the bath.

‘You had better finish up, Lizzy. It is past seven.’

She shuddered, her shift cooling where it stuck to her skin above the waterline. ‘How did you get here?’

‘By carriage, of course. We were a little delayed, to be sure —’

‘Who came with you? Is Fitzwilliam here?’

‘No, I only meant myself and Miss Darcy. She is helping Kitty filch biscuits from Cook. I fancy your Mr Darcy is busy along the same lines as you are, at present.’

Elizabeth settled back down in the bath. ‘Then the roads are not flooded? I feared the rain had —’

‘By no means. They are perhaps a little sticky, but if you listen you will find the rain has stopped, and it is my opinion it will not start again this morning. It was an evening shower, nothing more. Besides, it is lucky to have rain on one’s wedding day.’

‘It will not be lucky if one or the other of us does not make it to the church because of it,’ grumbled Elizabeth.

‘Well then, you had better get out of the bath, and let me dry your hair. You do not want to be late, or take a chill.’

She was, in spite of her thoughtlessness in the bath, in good time. The fires Mrs Bennet had ordered did their business in drying her hair, Jane brushing it into shape with the ease of long practise. She jogged one foot impatiently, drumming the heel of her slipper into the carpet.

‘Nervous?’ asked Mrs Bingley.

‘Yes,’ admitted Elizabeth. ‘I wish it were over and done with. I wish I had agreed when he asked me weeks ago if he ought to petition for a special licence, and we had been married that afternoon. I wish we had bought a common licence when Charles did, and made Mama be content with a double wedding. I wish we had gone to Scotland.’

Jane, apparently feeling that on such an occasion talk would not serve, handed her a glass of wine to nurse.

‘What if he does not come?’ said Elizabeth, absurdly. ‘What if he — what if he —’ She could not let herself say _what if he cannot bear to disappoint his family for me?_ They had had no news of his uncle or cousins. She caught the sound of Kitty cheerfully addressing Georgiana, and reminded herself that Miss Darcy was at that moment in her house. Plainly not _all_ of Darcy’s family disapproved of her. ‘What if his carriage breaks? Or what if it _does_ start to rain again and the road floods then, or one of the horses throws a shoe?’

Jane tugged her hair reprovingly. ‘What if the church washes away and we are all turned to stone, Lizzy? I spoke to him this morning before I left Netherfield, to make sure there was nothing else I ought to remind you of or bring you, and he bid me only to go to you at once. I think he would run here in nothing but his shirt if he had to. Be easy, darling. It is your wedding day.’

‘I know it,’ said Elizabeth. ‘ _That_ is why I cannot be easy.’

‘If you do not cease to fret, my father will refuse to go through with it. He will think you have changed your mind.’ There was a delicately unasked question in her voice.

‘I do not see how,’ snapped Elizabeth, ‘I can be accused of _not_ wishing to be married when my primary complaint is that it has not yet happened! I shall be easy when I am Mrs Darcy, and not before.’

‘Mmm,’ said Jane.

Her bridal costume was all that could be wished. Mrs Bennet, upon being presented with Elizabeth’s requests for her wedding clothes, based upon the infamous list, had at first wished to seek out her own sources of the required fabrics and ribbons, but, after much explanation on Elizabeth’s part of why this could not be so, had merely been obliged to content herself with the pleasure of spending a great deal of money to see her daughter so well married.

Trains and pleats, she had been delighted to learn, were no longer in style for the skirts of morning dress, and so her frock had been cut fashionably short all round. The bodice was discreetly pinned to the outline of her stays, and the long sleeves had been set so far off the uppermost part of her shoulders that, like the costume of some antique statue, the layers of silk and thin muslin appeared to be clinging on to her by means of a billowing wind.

Satin ribbons (blue as a sunny sky, from Yorkshire) had been a gift of Mrs and Mr Bingley’s. The latter’s own knowledge of ribbons, previously put down to a tendency to indulge the conversation of his sisters, had turned out to be that of a professional, if silent, partner. A spirit of romance had moved to her chose a veil (of Nottingham bobbinet, sent to Ireland to be adorned with handmade lace upon the edge before being shipped back again to be sold in a London haberdashery) after an illustration of court dress she had seen in a ladies’ journal, although she had admired neither the hooped skirts nor the feathered headdress that had accompanied it. This had been arranged to drape from the crown of her head, exposing most of her hair, which had indeed been induced to curl once more. Dearer than the rest, and last to be put on, was a circlet of early orange blossom made from branches cut from the orangerie at Pemberley and transported thence by Georgiana, who had guarded her cargo with all the care of a Lady of the Bedchamber charged with the management of a robe of state.

The Gardiners went off first, the adults warmly offering Elizabeth artless good wishes and the children, with rigid manners, kissing her with guarded affection. Mrs Bennet followed in the Bingley’s carriage, and Mary Bennet, sent ahead with her mother by some gentle machinations of Jane, climbed in after her, wincing a little as Mrs Bennet exclaimed to her over the splendour of it, and Jane’s good luck.

Elizabeth spent another five minutes undoing Mrs Bennet’s adjustments to her costume, retying her garters until they felt both comfortable and secure, easing her gloves back on — her fingers did not seem to wish to work as they usually did — and putting on heavy wood-and-iron patterns over her satin slippers, that she might manage the few steps between the door and the carriage house without risking their whiteness. 

Mr Bennet boosted her laconically into the carriage, handing up Jane, who sat next to her, Georgiana, who pressed herself into the corner facing Elizabeth, and Kitty, who grumbled a very little about being made to sit between Miss Darcy and Mrs Bennet. 

She smoothed her skirts down again.

‘Cheer up, Lizzy,’ said Mr Bennet. ‘If it _does_ start to rain again in the next ten minutes, you may at least console yourself that you are _fashionably_ damp.’

The carriage jerked to a stop. Elizabeth, facing forward, peered out the window at the familiar landscape, noting that they had by no means arrived at their intended destination.

She waited. They did not move. She fancied she could hear men talking outside. 

The rain did not seem to have started again, so she risked pushing open the window, and looked out, but could still see very little of what was ahead. There, at the edge of her field of vision, stood the little church, carriages and people milling about it.

She gripped Jane’s hand.

‘Papa,’ said Jane, pointedly.

Mr Bennet rapped on the roof of the carriage. The carriage shifted with the weight of their driver climbing down, a muffled curse as he — it seemed — slid a little in the wet and grabbed on to the side of the carriage, and at length, the door opened.

‘Ben,’ said Mr Bennet, with tolerable calm, ‘We are going to church, not to a field. Why have we stopped?’

Ben, who was the sort of man who spent his life coaxing large and easily frightened animals to proceed into all manner of alarming situations, and was therefore not easily cowed himself, did not hide his irritation. ‘There’s a line of carriages all the way up the road, Sir. They won’t shift themselves.’

‘A line of carriages? It is a _country road_ , not Mayfair. Who is it causing such a hold-up? Do not tell me it is the Lucases.’

Ben shrugged. ‘I don’t recognise them. Shall I go and find out?’ This was asked with a twinkle of malice.

‘Please,’ said Mr Bennet.

Ben stomped away with the careful high-stepping walk peculiar to a man walking in mud. 

A little more time passed, and Elizabeth looked out the window again. Ben, a little past the entrance to the church, was arguing with a pair of men in matching livery and wigs, gesticulating wildly at the Bennet carriage, the line of carriages in front of them, and, in a way that suggested imminent violence, at the two be-wigged servants themselves.

‘What is the time?’ she asked, wishing she had thought to hide her watch somewhere in her dress.

A flurry of activity pronounced it to be ten minutes to eleven.

Ben showed no sign of returning.

She tapped a foot, restlessly.

‘Kitty,’ she said abruptly, ‘help me. I must put my patterns on again. It cannot be more than a hundred yards from here to the doors.’

Mr Bennet looked incredulous. ‘There is no need for that, Lizzy.’

‘Yes, there is. I do not have time to wait. We will be sitting here past noon at this rate.’

Kitty managed the patterns, crouching uncomfortably in the footwell, and then, in a rare show of initiative spurred probably by the chance to defy Mr Bennet, opened the carriage steps. 

Georgiana sprang down them at once, managing her own patterns with practised ease, and lifted Elizabeth down the steps in a manner practically amazonian. She draped the swinging veil carefully over one shoulder, and, being rather taller than the other ladies of the party, opened a prophylactic umbrella.

They made their way forward with exceptional care. It was not raining, but it was gusty, and the ladies formed a shield to one side of Elizabeth, while Mr Bennet offered her his arm on the other.

Ben, seeing them, came forward, skirting into the knee-high verge to avoid an enormous rutted puddle that stood directly between them and the church, continuing from edge to edge of the road and running behind a huge, shining carriage that boasted a driver and _four_ footmen standing upon the running boards. Another carriage, decked in the same colours and numbers, stood in front of it, and in front of _that_ was the deep, elegant carriage handled by the two men Ben had been arguing with.

Elizabeth observed the puddle with dismay. Mud could be managed with her patterns, but unless the water was very shallow indeed, which she did not think likely, her shoes and stockings and probably her hem would certainly be soaked.

The church was but twenty yards distant.

‘I’m sorry, sir! It’s that damned useless set of coxcombs up before the gate. They won’t move their precious town carriage. Too worried the varnish will be scratched if they drive it into the grass, and they won’t risk moving on lest they lose their way. More than their jobs’ worth, they said. I’ve never met a prouder set of layabouts in my life.’ He glared at the servants attached to the nearest carriage, who — though their livery proclaimed them to belong to an entirely different household than the two obstructive men who had so far born the brunt of his ire — clearly fell into the same category of useless nuisances. The near servants pretended not to notice this.

Another man now arrived, proclaimed by his broad, weatherbeaten build and demeanour to be, like Ben, a coachman, and by his perfect, shining livery, to be a problem. Ben eyed him with instinctive dislike.

‘Davy,’ gasped Georgiana. ‘What is going on?’

He sketched a businesslike bow. ‘A bit of stupidity by His Grace’s town servants, Miss Georgie. They brought out the new London carriage against the rain, and didn’t stop to think that the cobbles end at Westminster.’

‘But surely they can go _somewhere?’_

‘Nowhere to turn the horses. It’s a narrow road.’

Georgiana squared her shoulders and said, with considerable courage, ‘tell them I _insist_ they move. Otherwise I will — I will —’ she trailed off, apparently unable to finish the sentence.

Davy turned around, and, with a jerk of his head, summoned the two recalcitrant coachmen. They arrived as elegantly and unobtrusively as fairy spirits, and looked at him, unimpressed.

‘Move your coach, Arnold Miller,’ said Davy, and then, with a neat piece of sophistry, ‘Or Miss Darcy will have nothing good to say about you to His Grace.’

Georgiana lifted her chin, looking very grim and pale.

The other coachman bowed in perfect symmetry with his subordinate. ‘With all due respect to Miss Darcy,’ he said, with the smooth arrogance found in servants of great households, ‘my orders are to wait until the wedding is over, so His Grace need not go too far in the wet.’

Ben spluttered in outrage at this. ‘Until the wedding is over! Look here, you clod, you’re blocking my young lady, _the bride_ . It won’t be over until _you_ move! I told you to move!’

The be-wigged coachman looked at Elizabeth, seeming to take her in for the first time. He looked a little concerned.

‘You might have said what for.’

‘I _did_ say! But _you_ were too busy —’

Elizabeth began to feel herself on the edge of hysterical laughter.

‘This is taking too long,’ said Davy, calmly. ‘Take off your coats.’

Ben, apparently considering this a prelude to a fight, reached for his buttons. 

The other coachman blinked, then recovered himself. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Davy shrugged massively. ‘There’s the puddle, or there’s the grass. The ladies need to get to church, and they must walk, because of you. Take off your coat and make a path.’ 

‘I will not! This is the livery of the _Duchy of Devonshire_ . You take off _your_ coat!’

Davy gave him a long, implacable look. ‘ _I_ ,’ he said slowly, in the tones of one speaking to an idiot, ‘am to drive the wedding carriage. I cannot go about covered in grass stains. My master would give me my notice for it.’

‘And what about mine? He will do no less.’

Davy raised his hands in a gesture of supplication to the universe. ‘Which do you prefer? To be let go for grass stains, or to be let go because you disrupted the wedding of one of His Grace’s oldest friends? If I were you, I would choose the path that damaged only my own prospects — it will likely be the easier one to recover from.’

One of the silent footmen upon the closest carriage began to laugh, quietly. ‘Go on, Arnie,’ he jeered. Another of the footmen joined in this heckling. 

The coachman began, very slowly, to peel off his coat. 

Elizabeth, feeling that this could not be a promising start to her marriage, attempted to protest.

‘Davy,’ she said. ‘This is not necessary. Surely there must be a blanket or a plank or a… _something_ …about. I must ask you to find another way.’

He looked at her directly, and she recalled, suddenly, how many of the servants she had met at Pemberley had been stubborn old retainers. ‘Apologies, Miss Bennet,’ he said, ‘But the way I see it is this: you can give me my orders once you’re Mrs Darcy, but not before. So just now I mean to ignore you, and this afternoon, if you’re still wroth with me, you may tell me off all you like, and I will be just as sorry and ashamed of myself as you could wish.’

He turned back to the Duke’s coachmen, and instructed them, with slightly too evident pleasure, on the placement of their coats upon the verge. Ben, stomping the grass flat, assisted with even greater satisfaction, and it seemed no time at all before they were across this final obstacle and standing before the threshold. 

The church at Meryton village was not large — old, cold, and made of stone, on most occasions it might expect to hold four or five families, though for those families it was most convenient in the maintenance of their local society. 

They stood a moment under the eves of the single-stepped porch — this particular building being too modest to boast more than a single true room, signifying the separation between sacred and profane with ledges and screens — removed their patterns, and adjusted Elizabeth’s dress as best as could be managed. 

‘How do I look?’ she asked, ‘Not covered in mud, I hope?’

‘There is a little on the inside of your petticoat,’ said Kitty, ‘but it does not show. Only a speck.’

Mrs Bingley waved this away. ‘You are perfectly beautiful, Lizzy.’ She kissed her on the cheek, and stepped back, blinking hard. ‘Give us just a minute to sit down, and then come in.’

She herded Kitty and Georgiana inside, and disappeared herself.

Elizabeth counted the seconds. Mr Bennet offered her his arm.

‘Ready?’

She signalled that she was, and he, contrary to the last, held her back a minute, kissing her forehead. ‘Well then, my Lizzy. Let us go see your young man.’

It was, perhaps, just as well that Mr Bennet had acted in such a fashion, for had Elizabeth not felt all her impatience of the past weeks so strongly at that moment, she might have balked on first entering the church. It was, she was startled to realise, packed almost shoulder to shoulder with a crowd of elegantly dressed strangers, who turned almost as one to stare at her. As it was, she was so determined that it was a few seconds before she entirely realised the weight of the attention paid her, and by then her eye had caught on Darcy, standing rigidly besides someone in scarlet regimentals, his eyes apparently fixed on the single high window in the apse. She wondered, briefly, if the person beside him could possibly be George Wickham — it would be of a piece with the morning — and then recognised, in a sudden shift of the shoulders that reminded her of Darcy, his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam.

She hardly knew how she made it to the altar. Darcy, grey faced, turned to look at her, and managed a bloodless smile. 

‘You came.’

‘I did,’ she said. His hand seemed cold in hers — she chafed it instinctively. ‘There was a good deal of traffic. I was obliged to get out and walk.’ She leaned close. ‘I am afraid I got a little mud on my petticoats.’

He laughed, a breathy, relieved sort of sound, and squeezed her hand. 

Dr Marley cleared his throat significantly.

‘It is a quarter past eleven,’ he said. ‘Shall we begin?’

They made it — just — through the ceremony before noon, and Jane Bingley, acting as the bride’s witness, signed her name in the registry at five minutes past the hour. This act, like the ceremony before it, was performed before the crowd of informal witnesses who had seemingly appeared from nowhere, though unlike the former it was, at least, performed at a distance of more than a bare few feet, behind a screen that did the honours of the vestry.

Elizabeth, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, risked leaning her head against her husband’s shoulder — _her husband!_ She squeezed his arm, and he loosed his grip for a moment to slip his arm about her back, dropping a kiss on her curls.

‘All well, Elizabeth?’

She nodded, feeling, for the moment, too overwhelmed for words, and wiped her eyes surreptitiously — but apparently not surreptitiously enough, for Jane produced a handkerchief. 

‘You’ve made her cry, Darcy,’ observed Colonel Fitzwilliam cheerfully. He tutted.

‘He has not,’ said Elizabeth, coming at once to his defence. She smiled, still feeling a little watery. ‘I am very glad to see you again, Colonel Fitzwilliam.’

He smiled broadly at this. ‘And I you, Mrs Darcy. Although, having been the first to call you that, may I call you Lizzy instead? We are family, now, after all.’

She sniffed. ‘If I may call you John.’

‘Jack,’ corrected Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam, almost in unison. She laughed.

‘ _John_ always makes me feel as if I am about to be dressed down,’ said Colonel Fitzwilliam apologetically. ‘You can practically use it as a weathervane for domestic disharmony.’

She smiled at this, and then, wishing to speak privately to Darcy — or at least as privately as could be managed under the circumstances — introduced him pointedly to Jane.

Elizabeth turned to whisper her confusion.

‘I did not expect so many guests, sir. My mother has planned for three or four dozen, no more.’

He looked faintly embarrassed. ‘I assure you I did not invite them. I am not sure how they came to be here. It happens sometimes, that a crowd gets up like this, but I never thought that _we_ would find ourselves the topic of such interest, especially so far from town. We will just have to make shift as best we can. Will Mrs Bingley mind very much if we ask her to send to Netherfield for whatever can be spared?’

Mrs Bingley did not mind at all.

The mess of carriages had been miraculously smoothed away by the time they emerged from the church, Darcy’s new carriage — a stylish yellow barouche, the shining black hood closed to guard against the weather — rolling smoothly to a stop before them. He handed her into the cushioned solitude of the interior, and she was abruptly reminded of the absurd scene that had delayed her earlier. She related it to him at once, by way of a teasing apology for having kept him waiting.

She was too pleased to be married and alone with him to permit any thought or anxiety as to what might come of it later, and Darcy listened with increasing amusement, laughing aloud at her depiction of Davy and Ben in the guise of valiant heroes.

‘Davy was my groom when I first learned to ride,’ Darcy said, confirming all her suspicions. ‘And now he manages the stables at Pemberley and trains my racehorses, so he does more or less as he likes. I shall tell him not to do it again.’

‘A very serious instruction, to be sure. He shall never again deliver your bride to you on your wedding day. I am quite satisfied by your imposing such a stricture — do you promise to give it just so?’

‘Oh, certainly.’ He pulled her closer.

‘But you are not distressed by the mistreatment of your friend’s servants? Or shall you tell me I misheard Davy on that score, and His Grace is one of our uninvited guests? I hardly know which to prefer, with so great a figure present at my wedding.’

He shrugged. ‘I doubt he will bring it up. It would be beneath his dignity, if he even learns of it in the first place. But His Grace _is_ an old friend of mine, that is true enough. We used to play together as children most summers. I am pleased he came — he is rather shy.’

‘I felt a little shy myself, before that crowd. Will you introduce me to all of them?’

‘As many as I can manage. But I must introduce you to my uncle as soon as I can — did you see him?’

She confessed herself unsure. There had been so many people present, and her spirits had been so agitated, that she felt she would not recognise a single person she had seen in the church. ‘He did come, then?’

‘Yes,’ said Darcy feelingly. ‘As did Milton and Lady Milton. Jack was bound to come, bless him, and no doubt he has been championing our cause since I first wrote to him of it.’

If she had not already been as willing as Darcy was to bless Colonel Fitzwilliam’s stalwart friendliness before meeting his father and brother, she certainly was afterwards. Their uninvited guests seemed to consist of half the fashionable world, all of whom felt they had a right to follow on to Longbourn, and all of whom wished to look at her, and to speak among themselves _of_ her.

An exceedingly tall, rather gawky young man dressed in half-mourning, who displayed a habit of looking unnervingly intently at anyone who spoke to him was introduced to her as His Grace, the Duke of Devonshire. She had blushed a little, recalling his coachmen, but, as promised, nothing had been said of it. He had shaken Darcy’s hand enthusiastically, bowed politely over Elizabeth’s, and offered them vague congratulations in a booming tenor voice before drawing away to speak to, of all people, Miss Darcy, who chatted happily with him in the disjointed manner of established friends.

‘I had no notion Georgiana could be so talkative in company! I am quite proud of her,’ declared Elizabeth, pleased and surprised.

Darcy looked delighted at this praise for his sister. ‘Hart is a little deaf, but Georgiana has known him since she was a baby and he not long out of leading strings. She understands his habits very well. And he is exceedingly kind.’

She risked a glance at them again. She had understood, theoretically, that the Duke must be young, to have been a playmate of Darcy’s, but she had imagined someone of about Darcy’s own age, very grand, to match his title — a forceful man of the world. On examination in light of Darcy’s statement, she realised the Duke must be the younger of the two — Mr Bingley’s age, or perhaps a little younger. His manner of holding himself _was_ arrogant, but she thought it unconsciously so; no doubt he had learned to expect a crowd to give way to him before he had learned to walk. And Georgiana, who seemed to talk to her shoes as much as she did her companions, looked him in the eye quite unselfconsciously as she expounded upon her impressions of the day.

It occurred to her that perhaps what best suited Miss Darcy in company was the opportunity to think of someone else’s wishes, so she need not dwell so on her own awkwardness. She had never seen someone dislike being waited on so much — but then, she thought, Darcy himself appeared to keep on every servant he had ever known. She had thought the boundaries of service and private friendship less easily blurred in a great household than in those small establishments where family members worked alongside their staff, but a child of an affectionate nature, growing up almost alone, might easily come to regard their nurses and grooms with as much fondness as they did a natural guardian.

Following the Duke came a torrent of new names and faces. By no means were all of these attached to a title — some were gentlemen and their wives, though a number of the wives preferred to use the honours granted by their fathers’ houses, these being superior to those granted by their marriages. Darcy whispered augmentations of each of these identities to her — the absent cousins, elder brothers, uncles and grandfathers that seemed able to connect almost any two people present to some degree or other. She nodded, set herself to recalling the names of those _actually_ present, and resolved only to be charming and disinterested.

Darcy’s family, when he was at length able to draw her across the room to meet them, were — quiet. 

She wondered whether he had got his height from his mother’s side of the family. Lady Catherine was statuesque, and Lord Fitzwilliam, though probably in his fifties or sixties, and built like a scholar rather than a sportsman, was still nearly as tall as his son — who was, in turn, nearly as tall as Darcy, though of a slighter build. But height seemed the order of the day among the gentleman present and no-one, she thought with a fierce pride, could claim to be handsomer than her husband was.

Darcy, with a pointed attention to her new status, had introduced the Earl Fitzwilliam and the Viscount Milton to her, and then had introduced his uncle and cousin to his wife — to _her_.

Lord Fitzwilliam, whose face was more clever than handsome, had looked her over with a bright, unreadable expression, his considerable eyebrows raised in apparent evaluation. 

‘Mrs Darcy. Congratulations on your marriage.’

Lord Milton tucked his chin in a little when he saw her, and examined her through almost colourless lashes. He echoed his father.

She smiled, determined not to show herself alarmed, and thanked them for coming. 

A little silence fell.

She asked if they had travelled far. 

‘From Milton,’ said Lord Fitzwilliam, which was no sort of answer she could make out. 

‘Cambridgeshire,’ murmured Darcy. 

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I have not spent much time in Cambridge, although I believe I passed through earlier this year with my aunt and uncle. I recall I thought it a very pretty sort of place. Are you often there?’

Lord Fitzwilliam answered politely that they generally spent some part winter there, before parliament sat in the new year. There was a hunting park, apparently.

She wondered what she could possibly say in the face of such determined lack of expression.

Darcy asked if they had had much sport yet.

Some, agreed Lord Milton. 

A generously proportioned lady in a finely-pleated, Mameluke-sleeved gown came up to them then, and studied Elizabeth with the same sort of heavily-lidded eyes as Lord Fitzwilliam and Lord Milton. She wondered if this could possibly be a relative of some sort, and was accordingly a little startled to learn that this was Lady Milton.

Darcy greeted her as Mary, and, at Elizabeth’s look of confusion, explained that she was his cousin by birth as well as by marriage, being the daughter of another of the Earl’s sisters.

Lady Milton did not seem quite so alarming as the rest of them, though she spoke with a pronounced accent that, though charming, Elizabeth found a little difficult to understand. Her father, a Scot by birth, had been some years in the possession of a peerage and a manor to go with it in Yorkshire, and his children had grown up shuttling between the various northern parts of the Kingdom.

Darcy, in apparent desperation, asked after her children. Lady Milton lit up entirely at this, and laid a hand upon her sash in a way that suggested not all of her plumpness was permanent. 

The string of names that followed — Maggie and Mary, both of whom had just started at school, William, who had done _so well_ following the hunt this year — had he not, Milton? They had all been so proud of him — Fanny, who missed her sisters very much, the poor dear, but now she was wild for reading that she might catch up with them, _so_ clever, little Tom who had begun to climb on everything — did suggest that some familial warmth could be found in the person of Lord Milton at least, even if he did not chose to direct it at his cousin’s choice of bride.

Darcy was clearly familiar enough with all these children to make small statements of approval specific to each accomplishment, and Elizabeth reflected that if such large families were the norm among the Fitzwilliams, it was no wonder Colonel Fitzwilliam had once mentioned to her the need of younger sons to marry prudently.

‘Have you much family, Mrs Darcy?’ asked Lady Milton.

Elizabeth, who had been following had been following these stories with equal pleasure and confusion, blinked. ‘Oh — I have four sisters. Three of them are here, but my youngest is away at her own establishment. And my little cousins are about somewhere —’ she thought she had seen the Gardiner children secreted in an alcove somewhere with some of the little Lucases and a plate of wedding cake.

‘You have no brothers?’ asked Lord Milton.

‘No, none,’ said Elizabeth.

This seemed to provoke a subtle softening of attitude, and, after a moment’s confusion, Elizabeth judged that they had possibly concluded her to be some sort of heiress.

‘My cousin Mr Collins is the closest gentleman I may claim as a relation upon my father’s side,’ she said a little reluctantly, determined not to win approval by deceit. ’My father’s estate is entailed upon him.’

‘Ah,’ said Lord Milton.

There was an attentive noise behind her. Mr Collins — whom, she realised with wretched horror, had probably begun to move towards their little knot of people as soon as he had realised Lord Fitzwilliam was the brother of his esteemed patroness — was lingering behind her, as he had likely been doing for some time. Now, hearing his name, he looked expectant.

Charlotte, who had taken his arm in such a posture as to make it appear that they were merely standing nearby by coincidence, gave her an apologetic look.

Mr Collins opened his mouth, and Elizabeth, realising that she must introduce him or allow him to introduce _himself_ , made the necessary introductions.

He opened with an awkward speech, torn between praising Elizabeth, who was, after all, his own cousin, and now a lady of means; Darcy, who accepted an outpouring of dubiously factual enthusiasms upon his character and virtues with readily apparent distaste; and Lady Catherine, who — he could not say how much he admired her ladyship. Her bearing, her strength of character, her wit and intelligence — he trailed off awkwardly, apparently at a loss to reconcile his high opinion of Lady Catherine with the unavoidable complication of her open disapproval of the match they were currently celebrating.

‘Lady Catherine _de Bourgh_?’ asked Lady Milton, in tones that suggested she could not believe they were speaking of the same character. She pronounced the name as if it had become stuck to her stocking. She looked to Darcy, who shrugged.

‘In _deed_ ,’ said Mr Collins. 

Lord Milton examined his snowy cuffs.

Lord Fitzwilliam wore an incredulous little smile, his eyebrows marching steadily towards his hairline.

‘My sister,’ he said at last, ‘has always been a most…. _forceful_ …character. I am pleased she is so justly admired in her own country. You do her credit, sir.’

Mr Collins bowed, overcome by this approval.

Charlotte, with impeccable timing, then chose to congratulate her friend so happily, and with so much praise for Elizabeth’s talents, good sense, and intelligence, that for some moments her husband was forced to give way to her.

‘And I am glad we have had the chance to speak to you before you go ,’ she said, and then made a significant gesture rather like that Lady Milton had made earlier. ‘For I am afraid I tire so easily just now. Will you think me very thoughtless if I ask Mr Collins to take me back to Lucas Lodge?’

Elizabeth pressed her hand in thanks, and the Collinses, with very little further mortification, soon departed.

Lord Fitzwilliam, whose eyes had begun to roam about the room, begged their forgiveness, for he had just seen someone he must speak with. He looked forward with vague pleasure to seeing her in town, and moved away directly.

Elizabeth wondered whether such a farewell ought be read as approval or disapproval of her.

Lord Milton turned to Darcy.

‘Much sport yourself, this season?’

‘Birds,’ offered Darcy. ‘But we do well enough. Plentiful quail, much better than it has any right to be so close to town. My friend Bingley — you remember him from last summer at Pemberley?’

‘That lively young fellow who drank Finny under the table?’ asked Lord Milton. 

‘Yes,’ said Darcy, grimacing. ‘He has the lease of the estate just west of here. He is lately married to Mrs Darcy’s sister.’

‘Oh!’ said Lady Milton. ‘So _that_ is what it was. I _see_.’

Lord Milton asked what she meant.

‘This,’ she said, waving a hand that encompassed the heaving mass of London society that had decamped to Longbourn. ‘Miss Elliot asked me a few weeks ago if it was true you meant to be married, Darcy, for she had it from her uncle the Bishop of St Albans that you had just petitioned him for a licence, but then Miss Munroe said _she_ had heard from her brother who is clerk to the Bishop of London that you had had a licence from _him_ in September, though there had been no announcement made in any of the papers, and then the two of them argued over the name of the lady, because they were both sure that it had been made out for a Miss Bennet or Bonnet or something, but none of the names they thought they could recall could be found in — well, _anywhere_ . So they argued it out the next day as well. Then Lady Harriet wrote me saying that Lady Morpeth had written to _her_ , and said that _Lady Morpeth_ had heard that banns had been read for you in Derbyshire, and the Duke had been _entirely_ unhelpful in giving her any information about it, and who _were_ you marrying that you needed to make such a fuss about it? I expect,’ she said, a little repentantly, ‘I might be at fault in some part. I did mention to Lady Stornoway and Miss Crawford that we meant to come and meet your wife for ourselves, since Aunt Catherine had written to everyone demanding that we shut our doors in your face, and no-one could get an explanation out of her as to just why she thought the thing so scandalous, and she certainly would have said if you were _really_ marrying an actress — but of course everyone but Aunt Catherine knows you won’t be argued out of what you want.’

Darcy’s face was a mask of astonishment. Elizabeth, still attempting to decipher this, wondered briefly who had suspected her of being an actress. 

Lord Milton blinked at this. ‘Extraordinary,’ he murmured. ‘I suppose, Darcy, there is some reasonable explanation for this?’

Darcy cleared his throat.

‘And,’ said Lady Milton, helpfully, ‘I think, my dear, you mentioned coming here when you turned down that shooting party Mr Burke meant to organise this week. The one he suggested when we saw him at that rout in Bath.’

Darcy made a gesture as if he meant to cross his arms, realised Elizabeth’s hand was still tucked into the crook of his arm, and settled for laying a hand upon hers. He gave his cousin a long look.

‘Which was a perfectly ordinary statement to make!’ protested Lord Milton. ‘If you hadn’t carried on as if you were contracting a secret marriage —‘

‘I did _not_ ,’ said Darcy. ‘As you can _plainly see_ , there is nothing secret about it. I offered my assistance to Mr and Mrs Bingley in arranging a licence out of friendship and familial duty, because I had taken Bingley travelling with me so often this summer that he had not an established relationship with the parish here to call upon. That is all.’

Elizabeth had been struck forcibly by the mention of a licence in September, which could be a reference to none other than Lydia’s marriage. Lady Catherine had certainly known of it, and would have put two and two together, but apparently neither Lord nor Lady Milton had bothered to remember _that_ detail of her defamation.

‘Well, then,’ said Lord Milton. He cleared his throat and addressed himself to his drink. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the cup, collected himself, and laid it aside to offer his hand. Felicitations on your marriage, Darcy. Mrs Darcy.’

‘Thank you,’ said Darcy, pointedly.

They shook hands.

Lord Milton did not precisely unbend after this discussion, but he did begin to assist in reminding Elizabeth of the many important connections that existed between her new family and such guests as she did not recognise, and, on occasion, directed such questions at her as suggested he might yet have some interest in her opinions. Lady Milton was friendlier, though Elizabeth had little enough time to talk to her, when she must try to make the rounds of everyone present, and listen again and again to the exclamations of the Hertfordshire matrons upon such a gathering. Lady Milton had expressed her disappointment at learning the Darcys meant to stay at Pemberley for Christmas. 

‘But perhaps you will find time to come and see us,’ she said. ‘It would be a pity not to, when you are as close as that. We keep the place very warm, for Lord Fitzwilliam has begun to mine coal these last few years, and now we can open almost all the house even when the snow piles up against the east front. It would be pleasant to have another lady about, since Jack is proving so lazy about finding a wife.’ 

Darcy had taken his cousin off to talk to Lord Fitzwilliam, and Elizabeth thought it likely they had gone for the exact purpose of explaining what Lady Milton had so cleverly laid out about their unexpected guests. Certainly, her husband looked much happier when he had found her again, pressing her hand affectionately and joining in easily enough with her conversation of the moment. She relaxed quite involuntarily at this, and soon began to flit from topic to topic with unguarded liveliness, accepting congratulations and advice with all the genuine sweetness her character could provide. 

Some hours after noon, Darcy had put an arm around her and quietly suggested that perhaps they might wish to think of leaving soon, for the assembled guests had clearly resolved not to depart before they did, and it was growing late to travel. She had agreed this was sensible, but had been immediately distracted by yet another conversation, and then, by the sheer impossibility of making her way up the stairs to her dressing room to change into her travelling clothes. 

She had nearly made up her mind to suggest that they decamp somewhere rather closer than London, since they were by no means likely to make good time to the house in Grosvenor Square, and had turned back to suggest this to her husband, when she became aware of a peculiar shift in the noise of the party. It had been loud — the gathering was enormous, and had been going on long enough that those present had relaxed into a cheerful and lightly inebriated state. The sound of happy chatter died alway in a wave, and then, like the sea returning, ripples of whispers began to slosh across the crowd.

‘Oh god,’ said the nearby Lord Milton, ducking away from whatever he had just seen over his cousin’s shoulder, and laying a restraining hand on Darcy’s arm. ‘Darcy — no, _don’t_ turn around just yet, for heaven’s sake — Prinny is here.’

 _‘What?’_ said Darcy, jerking involuntary around. Lord Milton was forewarned, however, and clamped down before he could make more than the slightest gesture. 

‘Who?’ said Elizabeth. The noise of the crowd increased markedly almost at the same time, and her question was lost in the din.

‘Why?’ hissed Darcy. ‘Are you sure?’

Lord Milton rolled his eyes. ‘Of course I’m sure. Who else could it _possibly_ be?’ He glanced up. ‘He is coming this way. Quickly now.’

‘But _why_? Surely — that is — ‘ 

Lord Milton shrugged incredulously, as if he could not understand why such a question would even be asked. ‘Does it matter? Probably he wants a word with my father or Lord Grey, and heard they were close enough that he might drop in on them.’

Darcy, who had been flushed and smiling until that moment, tucked Elizabeth’s hand distractedly into the crook of his arm, standing very stiff and close and, she thought, with a distinctly protective air. Lord Milton frowned at her in a way that reminded her, powerfully and unpleasantly, of the way Darcy acted in company he disapproved of. She leaned a little closer to her husband, feeling abruptly footsore, and wondered what could have caused him to become so cold again.

‘Have you been presented, Mrs Darcy? I do not recall —’

‘She has not,’ said Darcy, shortly.

Elizabeth was all bewilderment. ‘Ought I have been?’ She had never thought it an event much to be wished for.

‘You will certainly need to be after this,’ said Lord Milton. ‘John —‘ he hissed at Colonel Fitzwilliam in a stage whisper. ‘John, _quick_ . _’_

Colonel Fitzwilliam had no need to be told. He was weaving through the crowd, escorting his father with a most assertive air, but something very odd was happening to the sea of well-wishers crowded about the front door of the house. Fitzwilliam _père_ and _fils_ arrived, the Colonel with a sort of fixed calmness on his face that, in company with his dress uniform, made him a more striking and intimidating figure than she had ever seen him. The Earl looked only annoyed, tugging fussily at the sleeves of his morning suit, which was as immaculate as it had been hours earlier. She was abruptly ring fenced by Fitzwilliams, and by consequence of their collective heights, could no longer see anything at all beyond them. She _could_ hear Sir William Lucas attempting a little speech, though he did not seem to get on well. Darcy shifted his weight a little at this, and very briefly rubbed his forehead.

‘ _Who_ is allowing _that_?’ he wondered in tones of desperation, apparently to the air.

Lord Milton, continuing in his self-appointed post as lookout, said, _sotto voce_ , ‘Lord Lauderdale, _of course_. I think he must have instigated it. Is the gentleman speaking a relative of some sort?’

‘He is my — my cousin’s wife’s father,’ said Elizabeth, since _this_ question, at least, she could answer, and then, feeling she ought display some loyalty to her home country, ‘Sir William is a very good sort of man, though he is not always altogether sensible.’

‘We all have relatives like that,’ said Lord Fitzwilliam, unexpectedly. ‘It could be worse. My cousin Freddie is an idiot brute, and his children are no better than they ought to be.’

She stared.

‘Chin up, Mrs Darcy,’ muttered Colonel Fitzwilliam.

Her chin could hardly be higher if she had at that moment attempted to examine the bannister on the stairway landing above. She tried to restrain herself from attempting to look out over the crowd, realising that gawking was probably detrimental to the elegant demeanour she wished to present.

The crowd swayed and rearranged itself, eventually parting to reveal the man at the centre of all this attention. It was an extraordinary sight. He was, it was true, tall and very finely dressed in extravagant imitation of a country gentleman, and had probably been rather a beau in his youth; although now, beginning to be middle-aged and past beginning to be portly, he probably did not cut so fine a figure as he once had done; but all that by no means explained the movement of the people around him, who backed away like sheep encountering a short-tempered herding dog. 

He approached them, wreathed in smiles, and made her a slight, elegant bow.

She curtsied in return, adjusting it partway down when she realised Darcy — whose arm she still held — was making a full, formal bow. She had never seen him do such a thing. The Earl, rising from a similar position, shifted minutely.

The stranger turned to him. ‘My Lord Fitzwilliam.’

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘will you do me the honour of allowing me to present to you my new niece, Mrs Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley, who was until this morning Miss Elizabeth Bennet?’

She would have been angry at this, had she not been so confused. He — an uninvited stranger! — had interrupted her wedding breakfast, and now, before being presented to her parents, sought to have _her_ presented to him. But the strange gentleman smiled at her with genuine warmth, and she did not wish to offend her new family, so she presented a hand, which he pressed lightly with a large and outrageously soft paw. 

‘Charming,’ he said. ‘May I offer my congratulations to you, Mrs Darcy — and to you, Mr Darcy. May you enjoy continual felicity and increase in your marriage.’ This anodyne speech was given with as much gravity as if it were he were Moses issuing proclamations from the mount. She began to suspect him to be ridiculous.

‘Thank you, Sir,’ said Darcy, shortly.

‘Thank you —‘ she looked a query at her husband, hoping he, at least, would enlighten her as to the identity of their interlocutor.

The stranger, still smiling, looked to Lord Fitzwilliam, who seemed to have developed a sudden toothache. ‘My niece has lived a very retired life,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ said the stranger, kindly. ‘I see I have put you in a fix. We are all at sea.’ He waggled his eyebrows significantly at the Earl.

‘Mrs Darcy,’ he said, with the barest hint of a suppressed sigh, ‘may I introduce this gentleman to you as Admiral Carlton.’

She smiled, and allowed herself to relax a little. ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘it is my very great pleasure to meet you.’

Darcy laid a hand over hers, pressing lightly, and she looked up at him. His expression, she thought, was anxious, but not angry. She smiled helplessly at him, and laid her head quite involuntarily against his tight shoulder. 

‘A love match! I should have guessed. Pray forgive my intrusion on such a happy day,’ said the Admiral, rather unctuously. ‘You must think yourselves very lucky. Not everyone is permitted such luxury.’

‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth, who was after all in a mood to be pleased with everyone, however absurd they might be. ‘We are very happy.’

Darcy agreed to this, sounding a little strangled.

‘Well, my blessing on you both. Fitz, a moment?’ He gestured to the Earl, who was at his side in an instant, and the two of them drew some way off.

Darcy blew out a shaky breath, and pressed an impulsive kiss to her cheek.

‘Well done, my dear. Very well done.’

She looked at him with great surprise. ‘I fancy I am able to speak to a strange gentleman for a few minutes without disgracing myself or you, even if my life _has_ been so very retired. Why were you so anxious?’

He started. ‘I —’ he glanced at the gentleman, and lowered his voice. ‘You did not recognise him?’

She began to feel she was being made the butt of some joke. ‘No, I do not believe so. I am not very familiar with the navy, you know.’

‘The navy! Elizabeth, you — excuse me, I see you are serious. That is His Royal Highness the Prince Regent.’

Elizabeth blinked. ‘ _I_ may be serious, sir, but you clearly are not. Fitzwilliam, really —‘

‘I would not joke about it. He is impulsive, and half the gentlemen here are of his set. Milton, Jack —’ he looked an appeal to his cousins, who had been attempting to pretend they were not in earshot of this little marital debate.

Lord Milton nodded. 

So did Colonel Fitzwilliam.

‘But your uncle said he was an Admiral!’ Elizabeth said, beginning to feel the truth of it. She pressed a hand to her cheek, which felt unpleasantly hot. Darcy took her arm again, allowing her to lean properly against him. She felt as if she might be sick.

‘So he is,’ said Colonel Fitzwilliam. ‘Or at least he wears the uniform whenever he wants feting in Portsmouth. They all are something of the sort, technically.’ He produced a glass of wine, apparently from nowhere, and pressed it into her free hand. ‘Drink up. It’s all over now. Darcy?’

 _‘Please,’_ said Darcy. 

Lord Milton said, in much kinder tones than he had used earlier, ‘It is a matter of form, Mrs Darcy. You really ought not have been introduced to him before being presented to Her Majesty, but he could hardly avoid you at your own wedding breakfast — and His Royal Highness does pride himself on having gentlemanlike manners. His attendance here must therefore be incognito. You need not fear you have misbehaved, or shown yourself ignorant — on the contrary, he will think you delightful for having gone along so smoothly with his disguise. No doubt you will be much in demand for _tableaux vivants_ in future.’

‘You do not think he realised—?’

Lord Milton snorted, looking at once very like his younger brother. ‘Certainly not.’

She began to like him, a little.

At length, she began to feel a little calmer, and even felt able to take some amusement in the situation. It was not, she reflected, as if she had any good _reason_ to recognise such an august personage in so unlikely a setting — he was certainly not recognisable from the caricatures she had most usually seen him depicted in. The crowd of supercilious peers who had previously alarmed her now began to seem, by contrast, less intimidating, not least for the way they so attentively tracked his progress about the room, checking their speech when he was near and offering delicately phrased statements of approval in response whenever he deigned to speak to one or another of their company.

Lord Milton drifted away. Colonel Fitzwilliam, apparently feeling his duty done, addressed himself to a young lady Elizabeth had not yet been introduced to, but who apparently knew the Colonel well enough to turn to him with a spill of gossip on his approach.

She stood a little straighter, not really wishing to step away from her husband, but feeling she probably ought not press herself so long against him in company. He soon caught up her hand again, however, and she relented, realising with pleasure that he had derived quite as much comfort from her presence in that company as she had in his.

She turned to him with a smile. ‘I think, perhaps, we may say that things have been a success?’

He gave her an affectionate look. ‘I am certain they have. I had not realised —’ he looked about, to check they would not be overheard, ‘I had not realised how much pleasure it would give me to have you here by my side. That is — I knew, of course, how very, _very_ fond of you I am, and how easy you are in society, but — I had not thought to ever be so comfortable. I am sorry it was so awkward at first.’

‘I should like you always to be comfortable. I shall endeavour to make it so. I am very _fond_ of you as well, Fitzwilliam.’

He smiled. ‘I hope you will not find such a task too great a trial.’

‘Not at all! I am glad of your support. It is quite a comfort, to have such a stolid husband to steady me.’

She rose neatly on her toes, resting her fingers lightly against his arm to prove her point, and kissed him. 

Her mother’s voice broke through her reverie, rising ever louder above the crowd.

‘Yes, they _are_ a handsome couple, are they not? All my daughters are handsome creatures, indeed, but today I fancy Elizabeth must be the best of them,’ Mrs Bennet’s voice rang with pride and triumph. ‘But I must thank you for travelling so far to celebrate with us, sir — are you come from London?’

There was a pause.

‘Brighton! Oh, that is a place I must always be fond of. A most agreeable place, and so entertaining for young people. My youngest girl was engaged in Brighton, you know. I only wish she were here today, for she is quite as handsome as her sisters, but her husband has taken her away to Newcastle. _He_ is a soldier, and looks very well in his uniform. I _do_ like a man in uniform.’

Elizabeth, with a sensation of inevitability, looked towards her mother. Mrs Bennet was speaking, with great volubility and cheerfulness, and above all, great innocence, to the man whom she had been introduced to as Admiral Carlton. She began to expound upon the beauties of the Pavilion in Brighton, of which dear Lydia had said so much, and which was always guarded by so many handsome redcoats.

‘I think,’ pronounced Mrs Darcy, finding that there were, after all, still sensations she had not become accustomed to, ‘I am going to faint.’

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is a silly fic taken seriously, making explicit all of Austen’s hints about Darcy’s unnamed uncle the ‘Earl —‘ that imply that Darcy’s uncle was actually the staggeringly wealthy and influential Anglo-Irish peer William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam; whose field of influence basically started with his becoming a peer and major land owner at the grand old age of eight while making friends with apparently every future political giant of the regency period over a shared school desk at Eton, and proceeded more or less directly from there into a decades long political career. I have, of course, had to slightly rework some of the Fitzwilliam family tree to account for the existence of Colonel Fitzwilliam, Lady Catherine et all (although the Earl did have a Lady Anne for a sister), but hey, that’s what fic is for. Lord and Lady Milton are about a decade older here than their real-life counterparts, as are their children. The bit about them being first cousins is true, though.  
> As to the rest of the real-life figures mentioned, I’ve done my best to slot them into the appropriate alliances/personalities/correct title of the moment, circa 1811-1812, but Regency politics was frankly a huge and constantly shifting field, so take this in the spirit by which it’s meant, ie, for fun.  
> Prinny was never, to the best of my admittedly limited knowledge, an Admiral, except in one [cheeky poem. ](https://books.google.com.au/books?id=criV7xkoH1AC&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=Admiral+George+Carlton&source=bl&ots=-dDGRp-NC9&sig=ACfU3U284V-AbZ7ycizlOTUAF4HiBvp3Pg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGlMWyiNvqAhXixzgGHXHZB2cQ6AEwCnoECBAQAQ#v=onepage&q=Admiral%20George%20Carlton&f=false) He was technically a Colonel of the Light Dragoons, but by the time I got round to finding out what his for-show military role actually was I’d already come up with a pun. I bet he had an admiral’s uniform in his dress-up box, though.
> 
> as always, feel free to come and visit me at [tumblr](https://ellynneversweet.tumblr.com/). Sometimes I post previews! Mostly I post pictures of animals and stupid jokes, however.


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